Husborne Crawley – St James

The church of St James in Husborne Crawley is prominently situated in the main Church End part of the widely spread village of Husborne Crawley. High on a crest, the church commands extensive views towards Rigmont and the delights of the M1. Being directly on a busy road, parking is difficult although there are a couple of spaces just outside the entrance.

The church consists of a nave and chancel, two aisles, west tower and south porch with a vestry to the north side of the chancel. The long chancel is around 29 feet by 18 with the nave adding 34 feet and just a little in width. The aisles are around 10 feet wide and the tower is around 13 feet by 14 and about 67 feet high.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the church is the stone from which it is built being a mixture of brown ironstone and distinctly green greensand stone giving a very unusually be pleasing effect. With the exception of the tower, most of the church underwent extensive restoration and rebuilding in 1911.

The south aisle has two identical windows surrounding the south porch. Each is of three cinquefoiled lights under a flattened arch.

The eastern of the two contains the Mossman memorial window dating from 1953.

The large porch is lit by two two-light ogee headed windows under square heads.

To the east of the door is a large holy water stone.

The west tower is of three stages with an embattled parapet, the only part of the church that is embattled with other parapet’s being plain.

There is an internally accessed octagonal stair turret in the south-east corner of the tower.

The belfry openings are of two joined two-light trefoiled windows with a quatrefoil design in the tracery under four centred arches.

The west door is under a four-centred arch below a square head with plain spandrels.

The west window is of three cinquefoiled lights with perpendicular tracery above under a two centred arch.

There is a clock face on the west aspect of the tower, facing the main part of the village.

The north aisle is identical in layout to the south with the exception of the porch.

The two windows are identical to those on the south side.

The vestry and organ chamber date from restorations of 1911 and occupy the entire north side of the chancel and adjoin the east end of the north aisle.

The east window is an ornate affair of three cinquefoiled lights under an elongated pointed arch.

The outer two lights being only half the height of the window with the space above filled with curvilinear tracery.

The glass in the window dates from 1927.

The south side of the chancel has two windows surrounding the priest's door.

The windows are identical and are of two cinquefoiled lights under a two-centered arch with perpendicular tracery above.